Posted on 08/31/2006 1:42:03 PM PDT by veronica
'I Can't Hate Them for What They Did,' Olaf Wiig Says
Aug. 31, 2006 — - Despite being taken hostage at gunpoint in Gaza by a jihadist group and held captive for 13 days, Fox News cameraman Olaf Wiig says he can't condemn his captors.
"It's really complex," Wiig said on "Good Morning America."
"In some ways, I feel such sympathy for the Palestinian cause. You know, in my heart. You know, I can't hate them for what they did. I resent on behalf of my family what they did. But there's a funny bit of me that's sympathetic to them still."
Wiig, 36, and Steve Centanni, 60, were abducted by masked gunmen earlier this month.
Centanni, a Fox correspondent, said they were sometimes held facedown in a dark garage, tied up in painful positions, and forced at gunpoint to make videos and say they had converted to Islam.
The two journalists were dropped off Sunday at Gaza City's Beach Hotel by Palestinian security officials.
Centanni said he felt "sheer animal fear" after he and Wiig were taken hostage.
"I was wondering if I was going to die of a heart attack or if the next thing would be a bullet in my head," Centanni said.
According to Wiig, when asked where they were being taken, their captors said, "To hell. You're going to hell."
Pledge Allegiance to Islam
A previously unknown group calling itself the Holy Jihad Brigades held the two men in a garage for 13 days, forcing them to pledge allegiance to Islam.
On the day of Centanni's and Wiig's release, their captors delivered a video showing the two men in Arab robes reading from the Koran to indicate their conversion to Islam.
Centanni has said their conversion was forced at gunpoint.
"I have the highest respect for Islam, and I learned a lot of good things about it, but it was something we felt we had to do because they had the guns, and we didn't know what the hell was going on," he said in other reports.
Centanni and Wiig were stripped of their possessions and dressed in sweat suits as part of a process of removing their identity.
The journalists said they were not harmed physically during their captivity.
Videotaped messages shown around the world revealed the apparent resignation in their faces.
"You have no choice but to stay calm," Wiig said.
The captors told Wiig that he would be released because he was from New Zealand.
However, Wiig said, they told him that his colleague, Centanni, an American, was dangerous and that they were going to kill him.
Wiig said he kept that information from Centanni.
"I just knew that he was under [a] huge strain already, and I thought it was a burden he didn't need to carry for however long," Wiig said.
Centanni said he was grateful for that. "He's a beautiful man and a good friend," he said of Wiig.
A Force to Be Reckoned With
Wiig's wife, Anita McNaught, who is also a journalist, was on assignment in Damascus, Syria, when she heard the news of the kidnapping. She rushed to Gaza to put pressure on Palestinian authorities and local Islamist chieftains to save the lives of her "boys."
"The terrorists have not met my wife," Wiig said. "She is a force to be reckoned with."
McNaught said she believed Wiig and Centanni had been released thanks to a team effort on the part of local politicians and journalists, Fox News, her visibility locally and the men themselves.
"It's really crucial to emphasize this," she said. "Now know that a lot of the things I did were visible to the people holding them hostage. They knew I was in Gaza making statements, talking to Palestinian people. That on its own I don't think would have been enough to have got the guys out."
McNaught said it was Wiig and Centanni's "nobility and self-possession" as hostages that played a large role in their release.
"Because they kept, despite the stress they were under, they kept their cool," she said. "They got to know their captors. They behaved with generosity and courtesy. They took them seriously."
You don't know that. You don't much of anything about these men, yet you make such a statement.
Pitiful.
I watch and listen to very little news but I read a lot, that's how I solve it.
I talk to everybody. Psychiatrists, best friends, casual friends, clerks at the store - my need to babble to get things in focus is strong. I couldn't afford to pay a psychologist enough hours! The shrink would just try to put me on Lexapro or something....
Olaf Wiig, as I understand it, is not a Fox staffer but a freelance cameraman.
Wieg's are certainly over the top, but Centani has said nothing objectionable, IMO.
It was one time I agreed with Clark but only once and then you turn on Shep and listen to him rant about how Israel is so cruel and now you have to listen to Shep about how Bush was so cruel when it comes to Katrina "victims". I don't like to complain and I use to like FOX but I will call it like I see it and they are taking a left turn.
"Al-Jazeera said it received the video of the execution Wednesday from a group claiming to be "The Mujahedeen Brigade." Al-Jazeera said it did not air the video because it was too graphic."
"Frattini later described how Quattrocchi was executed. "When the murderers were pointing a pistol at him, this man tried to take off his hood and shouted: 'Now I'm going to show you how an Italian dies'. And they killed him."
i hear ya. i guess that's mostly what i do too. i try to pass on to my family the things i glean...the things i read...and what they mean in the real world when ya think about them, but i need to figure out if there's something more that can be done.
and maybe that's the biggest issue for me. when i read and think about what i see, the answers are fairly obvious. i conclude the other side doesn't read and they don't think. how can we help them read and think?
actually, i take some of that back. i believe they read, they read MSM crap and believe it. they just must not think about what they read. so the question is, what can get them to think reasonably about what's real?
anyway, thanks tobyhill for your reply.
Some are, perhaps many are. I met several when we were in Israel in March.
He's an idiot. They would have cut his head off if he hadn't sworn allegience to their patron.
>to the palis. You'll never see one cent from me if I can help it.<
To Hezbollah laced Lebanon: The U.S. gubmint is sending you my money, and I cannot help it!
Journalists who want to cover an exciting story do this all the time.
You could just as easily rightly assume that they went into Gaza because they wanted to see Israel crush the Palestinians.
That is just as uninformed a speculation as yours.
No reason for Wiig to convert since he's already a Pali sympathizer. Throw him to the pagans.
I use to not but now I think of FOX as just another MSM outlet. No one will agree 100% of the time with any source they follow but just 50% would be nice. FOX is the last visual media source that I could (past tense) count on getting me that 50%.
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